


What He Needed

by Emily (JustAround)



Series: August 2018 Fic-A-Day [12]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-04
Updated: 2018-09-04
Packaged: 2019-07-06 17:01:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15890268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustAround/pseuds/Emily
Summary: He needed someone who understood true loss.





	What He Needed

His family never understood what he saw in her.

To them, she was merely a Muggle, who did not have a real understanding of their world. Who spent way too much time worrying about her clothes and shoes and not enough time studying their world, trying to fit in when she visited. Who refused to wear any robes when visiting Diagon Alley or Hogsmeade. Who didn’t bother learning the intricacies of Quidditch.

Sure, Harry and Hermione tried; they were raised in the Muggle world, after all. They patiently explained how their world was different from the non-magical world. She humored them, accepting the books and magic items, smiling brightly at them when they asked if she understood. It was only when they left that she rolled her eyes. Sure, she appreciated the the help but they - along with everyone else in the family - seemed to think Muggles were a little slow, unable to really comprehend anything without having magic explained to them like they were a child, still looking at the world with a sense of naivety. 

Wizards gave Muggles far too little credit.

Especially when there are Muggles out there clued into the magic scene.

She had tried to explain that the first time she met them, she really did. But a few condescending ‘of course, dear, but the magic we deal with is real, not those sleight of hand tricks’ was all she needed to just give up and put on her best smile and nod. George could barely contain his mirth at the looks she could send him when his family was not looking, the faces she pulled in an attempt to make him crack.

That is what he saw her in, the part of her his family would never truly see.

She made him laugh, showed him the joy that life could bring. With her Americanisms, her shoe fetish, the cute way her nose wrinkled when bits of demon goo caught on her clothes. When she purposefully mangled names to see how outrageous she could get before he laughed.

The way she never tried to coddle him on days when he was at his darkest, when he fell back into the depression that started the day he saw his twin laying unmoving on the ground, the shadow of his last laugh on his corpse. His family tried to help him in their own way, reminding him of everything Fred would have wanted, everything they had accomplished together. It was enough to drive him mad. But Buffy…Buffy did not try to convince him how things were okay.

Because sometimes? They weren’t.

He knew when she folded in on herself, when she spent hours just staring out the window, that she was lost in her own memories. She had told him at the beginning of their real relationship - when they both revealed the truth about their lives - that she had been in Heaven. Her friends, thinking her lost in the many Hell dimensions, pulled her out, back into a world where she was expected to live, to breath, to carry on with the knowledge of all she lost. That some days, she still went back to those memories, no matter how hard she tried. That she couldn’t always be happy, be joyful in a world that paled in comparison to what she lost.

He let her be. Just as she let him be in his grief over his twin.

And that is what his family would never understand about her. He was not with her because he needed someone to force him to be happy.

He was with her because she understood that while it was okay to smile, to laugh, to live, there were other times when the darkness would be stronger. When grief was more important than joy. No matter what he did, Fred would always be a missing part of him. And with Buffy, that was okay. They were okay.

And no matter what his family thought, Buffy was what he needed. He knew, deep in his heart, Fred would agree.


End file.
